Tag Archives: animals

Marwell After Hours

We got some tickets to an event at Marwell Zoological Gardens that took place after normal hours. Having done some after hours events at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, we were interested to try this. It was a different format from what we had done before. Instead of lots of people being free to roam the zoo with various food outlets around the zoo, this was a more compact group of people. We were escorted by zoo staff including some of the keepers and they took us to specific parts of the zoo and were able to give us answers to any questions we might have while telling us about the animals and what they need/like.

While they wanted to try and keep everyone together, they were very accommodating if you wanted to linger a bit at one area. There was also a buffet mid way through the visit so we could all have a break and some food. The CEO was one of the people taking us around so you could ask any questions of how a zoo operates if you wanted to.

Zoo animals can always be a bit tricky. They do like to spend time in parts of their enclosures that are the least visible. Also, since this was later in the day, some of them were already getting ready to bed down for the night. However, we did pretty well with what we saw. The servals were the most elusive, but we did see one of them from a distance.

The rhinos were the trickiest. They have a large field that they wander around, and it didn’t seem to matter where around the enclosure I was, they were always far away. It almost seemed like they were following us around and making sure they stayed as far away as possible! I had not come with my bigger cameras and lenses and so the photos were a bit distant.

Whether it was smiling while watching the ring-tail lemurs, enjoying the giraffes as they lick everything with their massive tongues, seeing the tiger stretched out and dozing or debating whether the Dorcas gazelle where more interested in me than I was in them, I had a ton of fun. There was one enclosure that was particularly fun but that will get its own post. I would certainly recommend this if you are interested.

Springtime Means Lambs

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One of the things that I used to love about spring in the UK was the arrival of the lambs. When they are very young, they are so energetic and will be bouncing around all over the place. I thought the time would be right to see them not long after I arrived but didn’t have a good chance to see any. This led to me thinking I had missed the opportunity. However, luck was on my side.

We took a trip to Polesdon Lacey with the family and, while the house and gardens were the point of the visit, the fact that there were loads of sheep in an adjoining field and they had a bunch of lambs was not going to escape me. The lambs were gambolling energetically. There was a dip in the ground which they would jump down into. Sadly, this meant they would be out of sight but, a little patience would pay off. My favourite shots came when one of the lambs was alone coming across the field to join its friends and it bounced its way across the field. Soon they will be bigger and heavier and less cute!

How Brave Are the Baby Buns?

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The rabbits in our back yard are a regular thing during the summer when the grass must be tasty. We’ve had plenty of smaller ones show up and they seem to have less of a fear of us for some reason. Not sure that is a healthy approach for a small rabbit, but I was able to get quite close with the camera to some of them. It did involve keeping myself out of sight or at least a little away with no sudden movements but here are some of the small buns we had visiting.

How I Misjudged Hyenas Before Seeing Them

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There were many animals I was looking forward to seeing when we visited Kenya and Tanzania. One that I hadn’t thought much about and, if I had, it wouldn’t have been positive, was the hyena. They have a pretty bad image since they clean up all of the debris that is left and will also do their own hunting in the pack. While this is no different to many other animals, they seem to have been given a more negative image.

When we arrived, we immediately saw loads of hyena. They were out walking alone and moving in groups. They are not the sleekest looking animal, but I found myself surprisingly interested in them. When one would come into view carrying a trophy from a carcass, I would see this as a positive when others were focusing on the negative. We saw one hyena limping across the road with an obvious wound on its leg. This reminded me of just how perilous life is for everything in the wild.

Later in the trip we came across a den for the pack. One hyena was walking back in with a wildebeest leg in its mouth. This was going to feed some hungry mouths. There were some cubs in the den, and we could hear them before we could see them. They were fighting with each other between sessions suckling from their mother. It was really fun to watch this whole pack of animals in their social setting.

I’m not expecting anyone reading this to suddenly love hyenas. Some of the pictures will probably reinforce thoughts that yo might already have had about them. However, I will say that I saw them in a very different light over the time I was in Kenya and Tanzania, and I will never think of them the same way again.

Dogs in Goggles Ready to Save You

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I was a bit far away from the action to get a good shot of this but, during the aviation exercise recently conducted between multiple agencies at Arlington, there were support teams for emergency requirements which included some dog teams. I saw the dog teams head to the helicopters to head out to one of the exercise locations and then return later. The dogs were wearing goggles to protect them while around the helicopters and airborne. I would love to have been a bit closer to get some better shots but sadly that wasn’t the case.

Old Encounter with an Elephant

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In the late 90s, I made a very brief trip to South Africa for work. I had one day spare while I was there and so took a trip to Pilanesburg National Park, a wildlife reserve. I spent a day driving around looking at various different wild animals, mostly at a great distance. Since it was the middle of the day, lots of the interesting stuff was out of sight. Near the end of my time there, I took a drive down a side road to a watering hole that was supposed to be popular with hippos. I find hippos fascinating so was hoping to see some. No such luck.

As I drove back up towards the main road and started contemplating a return to Johannesburg, I saw a bunch of cars on the main road that had stopped. I slowed down, figuring that they had seen something off to one side so I started looking. Sure enough, they had. An elephant was wandering through the trees and coming straight for me. I sat watching it approach. It didn’t seem bothered that I was there and came straight for the car. When I realized that it was going to come right through me, I put the car in reverse and quickly got out of the way – grabbing a close up shot as I did so. It came on to the road and turned away from me walking towards a camper van. The van soon came to the same conclusion that I had. The elephant wasn’t interested in stopping or going around them so they had to reverse up the road as the elephant paced them appropriately. Finally it turned off and I imagine they breathed a sigh of relief.

Wild Bites

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Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle was holding a fundraising event this summer. It was called Wild Bites. Taking place in the evening, it consisted of a bunch of Seattle restauranteurs having food stands throughout the zoo along with some drinks stands. You could wander around between the enclosures, take a look at the animals, stop for some snacks themed on the part of the zoo they were in and grab a drink too.

It was an enjoyable evening with some really interesting food and a nice atmosphere. I will have some follow up posts with specific animals from the evening but overall we had a really nice time. A minor problem was that a lot of the animals seemed to turn in for the evening once normal closing time came around. We found quite a few were settling down or were already asleep. Also, the drink stands seemed to run out of stuff later in the evening and, since we had waited to sample some of their stuff, to find it was out seemed a bit off.

Still, it was a nice evening and the zoo was a great place to wander as the light gently faded away. It was all raising money for the zoo too so a worthwhile cause. Keep an eye out for something similar if you live in the area.

Tigers Being Tigers

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There are four tigers at Cougar Mountain Zoo. They are in two pairs and they move them between enclosures to give them some variety in their surroundings. They were pretty active compared to tigers I have seen in other places. They spent a lot of time checking out where they were. Of course, being cats, they also enjoyed lying around for some of the time. The staff also did a demonstration with them when they showed how they carry out physical examinations for the cats when necessary.

The tigers would come up to the fence and would stand up on their hind legs with their paws up on the fencing. This allows the staff to CA them out from the safety of being behind the fence. It is a good opportunity to realize just how big a tiger really is. Those paws are something and, if you were in there with them, you can see how easily they would dispatch you!

Ardenwood Historic Farm

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If you head across the Dumbarton Bridge at Fremont, you will pass Ardenwood Historic Farm. On the right side of the highway as you head towards the bay, this farm has been a feature of the area for over 100 years although it is now a fraction of its former size. However, it is now under the control of the East Bay Parks District and open for the public to visit. It is a combination of little bits of what a farm would be. You could say it perpetuates some of the myths you have as kids about what farms are like since we grow up thinking that all farms have a bit of everything rather than just being a cattle farm, growing a single crop or raising chickens en masse.

However, it does provide an opportunity to see some aspects of an old style farm much as they once were. The farmhouse itself is quite impressive. The family that owned it became quite influential in the area and had the house to match. The grounds are nicely laid out and it was a pleasant spot to spend some time as the chickens that were scrabbling around in the dirt near us also seemed to think.

There are goats, sheep, pigs, horses and cows in the grounds. They get a lot of attention from the visitors and we were no exception. The goats were the most active seeming to be more interested in the leaves on a tree above a bench in their enclosure than the food that they had been provided. A couple of the kids were desperately reaching under a fence. I guess the grass really is greener…

More Young Wildlife

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We took a trip to Brookfield Zoo to see the young snow leopards. However, we also were aware that there had been some other new arrivals at the zoo since we had last visited. One of these was a baby White Cheeked Gibbon. After visiting the leopards, we headed for the large primate building to see how the new arrival was doing.

Shooting in the primate house is tricky since the light is not always great. I also hadn’t planned for this so didn’t have a flash with me. After the cold outside, the warm and humid building also made for a lot of steaming up of the gear so we spent a lot of time just looking around while everything cleared up. The baby was certainly pretty cute. Mum was taking good care of him while some of the other gibbons seemed to be a bit annoyed about the lack of attention they were getting. This could involve trying to poke the baby. However, Mum was up to the task of fending off any unwanted attention!